


tame the strength of the ocean

by thisissirius (thirteentorafters)



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Betrayal, Fast and Furious AU, M/M, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 18:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20086420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirteentorafters/pseuds/thisissirius
Summary: "All this to apprehend two men?"jonny and patrick parted on .... terms.coming back together is a riot for all their friends.(nothing actually happens in this fic. not really.)





	tame the strength of the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> (if you thought i could resist titling this song with danza kuduro lyrics after kaner said that one time he knew the whole song, the loser, you were WRONG. i would pay to hear kaner sing in spanish. this is all i have in the meantime.)
> 
> i love that the last time i wrote a movie au patrick and jonny spent most of the fic trying to kill each other.
> 
> that doesn't actually happen here (except for when it does) but oh well :)))
> 
> i still maintain that at some point, kaner and jonny had a super long conversation about joe thornton and the concussion that ruined both their hockey nights in canada (and america). blame that nostalgia conversation i had with jezziejay on twitter. siiiiiigh. (am i making sense? i feel like i'm not.)
> 
> the original fic of this included shawzy and bollig and the lockout team that is the hill i will die on. i almost kept it that way. (i think i'm glad i didn't? THIS ISN'T 2012!!! *weeps*)
> 
> anyway. it's been a while :) also thank you to atb for letting me join the fest later than planned. i had a BLAST.

Jonny isn’t expecting to get out of jail (not for free, do not pass go, etc).

Given 20 to life because he’s an idiot who can’t run when he’s given the chance, he’s contemplating his career choices in the prison transport when everything goes tits up—literally—and he finds himself in the hospital. 

For the second time.

And by hospital he means Hossa’s backroom pick me up. 

“Is this even sanitary?”

“Fuck you,” Hoss says good-naturedly as he stitches up the hole in Jonny’s thigh. “You’re still alive, no?”

True. Jonny looks away from the work. He's not squeamish, but he’s not looking to investigate the wound either. The door is open and he can see right into the next room. His heart lurches when he recognizes every single face—though he can’t discount it being down to Hoss and his sadism. “Everyone here?”

Hossa doesn’t say anything for a moment, but when he looks up, there’s an unreadable expression on his face. “Everyone.”

It takes Jonny a minute to understand what he’s talking about. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Tugging a little harder than necessary on the sutures, Hossa finishes up, washing his hands and giving Jonny a pointed look. “Without, you’d be in prison.”

Jonny makes a face. “It’d probably be better.”

“Hope Sharpy doesn’t hear that.” 

Jonny looks up, throat thick as he stares into familiar blue eyes. “Fuck you.”

“Pass,” Patrick says, lips quirked up into a knowing smile. Good to know he’s still a dick. “You weren’t that good.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Jonny snaps, jumping down from the bed, forgetting too late he’s injured—fucking _Patrick_. There’s a flash of something (worry? seriously?) in Patrick’s eyes, but then he’s back to smirking. 

“Like I said,” Patrick says. He pushes off the door and opens his mouth to retort when he sees the scar on Patrick’s face. Patrick catches him looking and turns away, eyes dark. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Hossa shoves Jonny back onto the bed and Jonny goes willingly. Half of him wants to grab Patrick and demand answers. The other half contemplates smothering himself with a pillow.

“We have a problem,” Sharpy says, kicking his legs up onto the bed, ankles crossed.

Jonny doesn’t even both trying to shift them and goes back to pretending not to listen. Maybe his friends will realize the point he’s been trying to make by not fighting the jail sentence, but he doubts it. “No shit.” 

Sharpy stares him down and Jonny reconsiders not handing himself in to the nearest cop. “Aside from your disgusting sexual tension with Kaner.”

Ha. They worked out the sexual tension a long time ago, thank you. That’s the problem. Was the problem. “Enlighten me.” 

Jonny’s been trying to prove that the Blackhawks work just fine without him. Not letting him prove it is becoming a real pain in the ass.

Sharpy tosses a folder on Jonny’s lap, manila like they’re Feds or something (he’s not going _there_), but Jonny can’t resist opening it. There’s a familiar face staring up at him. He’s getting sick of familiar faces. “They’ve sent him after you.”

“Fucking Patrick,” Jonny snaps. “I should have stayed on the damn bus.”

“Why are you such an idiot?” Sharpy leans forward, jabbing at the folder. “They sent him because he’s the only person who ever looked at Patrick and thought _he’s compromised. _They sent him because they know Patrick’s the one who let you go last time, that he’ll be the one always standing between you and them.”

Jonny snorts. “That ended a long time ago.”

“Sure,” Sharpy says, unconvinced. “That’s why you’re sitting here and not in a Federal prison.”

Joe Thornton is a perpetual thorn in Jonny’s side.

Ever since _Patrick_ anyway. 

“He was after you before Patrick,” Seabs points out when Jonny says so aloud. 

“Would have found us too, if not for Patrick,” Sharpy adds.

Jonny needs new friends. “The point _is_,” he continues, “if Patrick hadn’t broken me out, we’d be _fine_.”

“If he hadn’t broken you out, you wouldn’t be fine,” Sharpy snaps, apparently done with Jonny. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Tazer, but you’re not exactly a well-loved man. It's not like you'd last long in a prison."

"Neither would you," Jonny says, so that he doesn't have to think about the rest.

Sure, we knocked off a couple of truckers way back when, but since then, we’ve been lowkey.”

“That’s kinda what happens when you flee to Mexico.”

“Tazer,” Seabs warns. “Kaner came back for a reason. I don’t know if you’re being deliberately thick or you really did knock loose whatever brain cells you had in Nevada, but you know what the hell it is.”

Jonny’s not sure he actually does, but he knows better than to say that. “Patrick aside, we’re gonna need one hell of a plan to get out from under Thornton’s radar.”

“The man doesn’t know when to quit,” Sharpy agrees. He leans back in his chair, eyes darting to where his kids are currently climbing all over Uncle Kaner. Jonny’s trying not to look, keeping his attention on Alex and Dylan, who are wrestling over Hossa’s remote.

“He takes after Kaner that way,” Jonny says before he can stop himself.

It leaves an uncomfortable silence around the table and Jonny rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes. Sometimes he wishes he’d never met Patrick Kane. (_Liar._)

“I still have your car,” Patrick says.

Jonny looks up, surprised. “It was wrecked.”

“Sure,” Patrick says easily, handing Madeline and Sadie off to Abbie and walking over, hands in pockets. “I found it. Fixed it.”

There’s nothing to say to that. Patrick stays anyway, staring down at Thornton with a strange expression on his face. _Is it weird_, Jonny wants to ask, _to see your protégé as an enemy?_

“I’ll show you.”

Jonny hesitates, sees the pointed way Sharpy’s looking at him and sighs, knows he’s not getting out of a conversation with Patrick alone if his friends—ha—have anything to say about it.

Patrick heads out of the room, but before Jonny leaves the room, he hears Alex say, “what happened between them anyway?”

Shutting the door quickly, Jonny leans against it, trying—and failing—not to remember.

(“I love you,” Jonny says, rolling his hips.

Patrick’s breath hitches, his fingers digging into Jonny’s back. He’s crying, Jonny realizes. “Jonny.”

It’s the way he says Jonny’s name; reverent. An apology. “Patrick?”

“I need to tell you something.”

Except he never does.

Two days later he’s pulling Jonny from the wreckage of a car, hands pressed to Jonny’s head wound and panic in his voice as he says, “This is Officer Kane. I need assistance,” and Jonny passes out before he can hear anything else other than _betrayal, betrayal, betrayal.)_

“You never turned us in,” Jonny says. He runs his hand over the hood of the car, imagines it thrumming with heat, with _power_. God, he loves this damn car.

“You didn’t run.” Patrick’s leaning against the passenger side door, staring at his feet. He’s smaller than Jonny remembers, but that’s probably just because he’s not _Agent Patrick Kane_, just Patrick.

Jonny shrugs. “It wasn’t planned. You could have left me behind in Nevada.”

Impasse. Always a fucking impasse. You could have—you didn’t—I didn’t mean to.

“I can’t,” Patrick says. The _not like you_ is silent, but Jonny hears it as if Patrick had yelled.

Flinching, he rests his hands on the hood, stares through the windscreen into the interior. It’s perfect, as if Patrick memorized every detail enough to bring it back to life. “I loved you.”

“So did I,” Patrick says.

Jonny snorts. “Sure.”

“Fuck you.” The words are calm, conversational, and Jonny thinks that’s worse than if Patrick had raised his voice. Pushing himself away from the car, Patrick’s eyes are narrowed. The movement tugs at his scar and Jonny’s chest tightens, his heart _aches_ and he doesn’t know how things got so fucked up. “I loved you. Why do you think I let you go? I gave up everything, Jonny.”

_My family_.

Jonny remembers Patrick’s sisters at his hearing. Jess crying. Erica resigned. Jackie angry. As if they’d known exactly what Patrick was gonna do. Maybe they did—maybe they do. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“That’s the point,” Patrick says, looking tired suddenly. “You never have to ask.”

Hoss needs them out of his house. He isn’t saying as much, but Jonny knows they can’t stay much longer. He’s one of the first places Thornton will come. Hoss isn’t their personal doctor, not anymore, but he’s still a friend—and all Jonny’s friends are about to get a call they don’t want.

“How far are we trying to go?” Seabs says, perched on the edge of the desk. He’s looking over the maps, working out escape routes and diversions.

“Back into America,” Jonny says.

There’s a pointed silence. Patrick looks unsurprised, thumbing through his phone. Jonny hopes he’s protected; if he gets them found because he wants to surf the net, Jonny’s gonna kick his ass.

“You dragged my family out of America,” Sharpy says slowly, “only to drag them back again?”

“I didn’t drag your family anywhere.” Jonny gestures at the rest of the ‘Hawks around the room. “The only person dragged anywhere was _me_ and I didn’t even ask to be here!”

“Oh, give it a fucking rest, Tazer,” Patrick snaps. He stands up so fast his chair skids backwards and his hands are clenched into fists. His scar looks oddly familiar in the light and Jonny thinks _knife_ about the same time he realizes just who favors that weapon. “If you wanted to stay in jail, you’d have walked out of here as soon as you were able to and fucked off. You’re the reason anybody in this room is even wanted. Dragging _them_ into breaking the law because you and your buddy were _bored_. You got left behind for the first time in your life and it pissed you off, so you upped the ante and focused your attention on truckers. You wanna know why I volunteered to go undercover? I was trying to prove it _wasn’t_ you.”

Jonny’s breath leaves his body in a rush, and he grips the edge of the table. “What are you talking about?”

Patrick stares him down. Jonny can see everyone watching them and for once nobody speaks. Jonny wants to, wants to break whatever fragile thing is between he and Patrick, but he doesn’t want to see it go. Patrick makes the choice for him. “You left me in Chicago. You went off with TJ because I cared more about my family than getting involved in whatever shit you had going on. I knew the ‘Hawks were responsible for the heists. I chose the undercover assignment because I knew they’d never put _Patrick Kane_ and _Jonathan Toews_ together. Why would they?”

There’s an awful twist to Patrick’s mouth.

Why indeed? It’s not like anybody knows Jonny and Patrick grew up in the same neighborhood, that Jonny spent every morning with the Kanes, and Patrick every evening with the Toews’. That they spent most days talking about opening a garage somewhere and making beautiful, fast cars.

“I love you,” Patrick says. _Love _not loved. Fuck. “I spent months diverting attention away from you and onto Backes.”

Then Jonny challenged the truckers in daylight and ruined everything.

“Nevada?” Sharpy asks.

Patrick shrugs. “The Feds snapped me up. I have everything about the Blackhawks up here,” Patrick says, tapping his temple. “I feed them morsels and they give me free rein of the offices. Not that the information they ever received did them any good. When I saw you in Nevada,” he says to Jonny, “I wanted to strangle you. _Lay low_ I told you in the hospital. A race is not laying low. What else was I supposed to do except get you the hell out of there?”

“Patrick,” Jonny says, but Patrick shakes his head, holding up a hand. Jonny shuts his mouth on whatever words he thinks he might be able to find, and watches Patrick back out of the room. “Fuck.”

“You knew Patrick before the ‘Hawks?” Seabs asks.

The room is mostly clear of guys, everyone finding somewhere to kip their last night at Hossa’s, but Seabs won’t stop hovering, waiting for his time alone. Jonny appreciated it before. Now he’s not sure he wants to know what Seabs has to say.

“We grew up together.” Leaning back against the couch, Jonny stares up at the ceiling. “Our first kiss was at his sister’s thirteenth birthday party. He’d just been eating ice cream and his tongue was cold. I thought I loved him.”

_Thought _because if Jonny had loved him, it shouldn’t have been so easy to walk away with TJ. Jonny doesn’t think it’s true. TJ had been fun, but he and Patrick had been drifting apart for a while, ever since Patrick’s dad had decided the police force would be the best career for his only son. As if Patrick’s life was _his_. Jonny remembers hating Tiki with a passion and his fight with Patrick. He says as much to Seabs. “It was my birthday. I had the chance to go to college and I didn’t take it. Patrick thought I was an idiot, said he was gonna be a cop just like his dad. He’d never,” Jonny’s voice breaks. “He’d never said anything about it before then. It was always about the garage and what we were gonna do together.”

Seabs doesn’t say anything for a long time. “When you first brought Kaner to the garage, I thought you were off your head. I’ve never seen you that way before or since. Patrick’s exactly the same. Given what he said,” Seabs says and god, Jonny doesn’t want to think about it, “maybe his decision to go into the force had less to do with his dad than it did _you_. If you’d asked him to stay, would he have?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, because it’s not even a question. “But I didn’t. He shouldn’t have needed me to.”

_You never have to ask_. Patrick’s own words and he can’t even listen to them.

“We fucked it up.”

“Yeah,” Seabs says, and there’s a laugh back in his voice. “But it’s fixable. If you want it to be.”

Bullets ricochet off the window frame and Jonny ducks behind the couch. “Jesus, already?”

“You’re paying for this shit,” Hossa yells before bringing up a Glock and aiming out of the window.

“Where the fuck did he get a gun?” Alex says.

“It’s his _house_ you moron,” Sharpy snaps, tossing a 9 mil to Jonny. He cradles his own, peering around the couch. The window’s blown out, glass shattered on the floor around them. “How many of them are there?”

Duncs is to the left of the window and he does a cursory count. “It’s Thornton. Two agents. Couple of uniforms.”

“More on the way,” Seabs says, his ear to the scanner.

Perfect. So the prison bus isn’t fun, but it’s better than death. Marginally.

Not that Jonny wants the prison bus with so much shit to figure out.

It’s a hail of gunfire and yelling, and Jonny hates how at home he feels with it. It’s too easy to aim his own gun and fire through the window.

“I think I can divert them away,” Seabs is saying into the receiver. “Alex, get over here.”

Alex ducks behind the armchair and over to Seabs. Dylan slides into his place. Another window smashes and Hossa curses under his breath, darts away from the couch. Someone follows him—Jonny can’t see who it is—but a bullet catches them in the back of the head. They go down hard, and Jonny’s stomach goes with them, nausea rolling in his gut. He remembers liking the thrill of this. Why?

“Jonny, what the fuck are you doing,” Sharpy says, catching his arm.

Jonny realizes he’s started to move towards the window and snaps, “I’m getting them killed.”

“They made their choice!”

“No, Patrick was right. I made it for them—and I’m choosing to make it right.” Jonny holsters his gun, knows giving himself up is the only way to stop this.

“I hate being right,” Patrick says. Jonny hates it when he does that, always so fucking quiet.

Jonny opens his mouth to say something, but Patrick curls his fingers around Jonny’s wrist, a point of contact that burns like a brand. It’s the first time they’ve touched in years and Jonny desperately wishes they didn’t have _everything_ happening around them. “Patrick—”

Patrick’s eyes are dark. “Later,” he says. “_We’re_ making this right.”

It’s on the tip of Jonny’s tongue to refuse, to leave Patrick behind, but he’s had enough of that. Nothing good comes from leaving Patrick behind.

“All this to apprehend me?” Jonny says, faux innocence.

“All this to apprehend two of you,” Thornton says, and his gaze snaps to Patrick. There’s shame there, Jonny realizes, and feels a surge of protectiveness. “_Not compromised_.”

Patrick looks bored. “We’ve had this conversation.”

“Because you need to hear it again.” Thornton takes a step forward, so Jonny does the same, mouth lifting into a smirk at Patrick’s eye-roll. Thornton looks between them. “What’s so special about a _felon_?”

Patrick doesn’t say anything, even if Jonny’s curious himself. God, he hates having anything in common with Thornton.

“Come on, Kane,” Thornton taunts. “Surely his dick isn’t that great?”

Jonny feels a ridiculous urge to correct him, but Patrick’s already talking.

“You wanna know the first time Jonny and I fucked? Five years before you met me.”

Watching Thornton do the math is painful; this guy’s forte isn’t numbers—unless they’re related to arrests. “I knew that you weren’t—”

“It wasn’t hard,” Patrick says. “If anyone had bothered to really look, they’d have made the connection between Jonny and I. Nobody wanted to know and that’s just how I needed it. I was never going to be the mentor your wanted, Thornton.”

“You were a lousy cop.”

“I was never a cop”, Patrick says, as if he’s commenting on the weather. Jonny can see the gun in the back of his pants that he’s curled his fingers around. Somewhere in the house Duncs and Sharpy are watching—whatever bloodshed they’ve prevented thus far is gonna start up again when Patrick fires. Not a question of if. Patrick’s a lousy cop for a reason and finally, Jonny gets why that is. “I was always Jonny’s.”

He fires.

A bullet grazes Jonny’s leg.

Sharpy’s barking commands somewhere behind him.

Patrick’s so fucking beautiful, gun cradled in his hands, lithe and _small,_ but no less dangerous for it. Jonny wants him, knows he has every inch of him, and brings his own gun up, fires a bullet into Thornton’s shoulder and watches him go down.

They’re making ground; the cops are on the back foot, outnumbered without their backup—whatever Seabs and Alex are doing is working—and Jonny thinks they might just win this.

Patrick jerks, slamming back against Jonny grunting. “Fuck.”

There’s a bullet wound in Patrick’s shoulder and Jonny lets the rage take over, shoves Patrick to the left, trusts him to catch himself, and knocks Thornton off his feet. Enough guns; Jonny’s better with his fists.

It’s too fast for Jonny to focus. He’s got the upper hand, then Thornton, all the while Jonny drags him away from the house, away from _Patrick_, wants to end this without any more wounds to them.

A swift kick and Jonny hits the ground, breath knocked out of him for a beat, two, and Thornton uses the time to get a hand around Jonny’s neck. Jonny shoves up, hits Thornton and scrambles for a gun. Thornton knocks it away, puts distance between them.

“I don’t think so, Toews,” he snarls, and pulls a gun from his ankle holster.

The end, then. “I always thought it was Patrick you wanted,” Jonny says.

There’s movement to the left.

It takes a split second—_he’ll be the one always standing between you and them_—and Jonny says, “Patrick, no—"

Patrick gives him a smile

and steps between Jonny and the bullet.

“You asshole,” Jonny says.

Predictably, Patrick says nothing.

“He is choosing to sleep,” Hossa says for the third time. “I know you heard me last time.”

Jonny stares him down. Why is Patrick sleeping when he could be waking up and letting Jonny know he’s okay, the dick. “Hossa—”

“Jonny,” Sharpy says, stepping between them. “Leave Hoss and Patrick alone.”

“No,” Jonny says immediately. “I mean,” he continues when Sharpy opens his mouth to protest, “that I’m not leaving Patrick alone.”

“I should call his sisters,” Jonny says. He’s tracing the scar on Patrick’s face with his fingers. Sharpy’s been looking at him weirdly for the past ten minutes but he doesn’t care. “They’ll wanna know.”

Sharpy pinches the bridge of his nose. “He’s not dying, Jonny.”

“Hossa says he’s just sleeping,” Jonny agrees, “but he’s not waking up. This isn’t sleep. Not after a week.”

Silence. Sharpy knows, just like Jonny does, that _sleeping_ does not look like this. The bullet was too close, another scar above the one over Patrick’s eye, grazing his temple.

“A little to the left.”

“Stop it,” Sharpy says, his voice wavering. “Hossa knows his shit, Tazer. I have to trust him.”

_Have to_. Jonny sits back in his chair. He looks at the window above Sharpy’s shoulder, the tiles to his right, anywhere except Sharpy's eyes. “We figure our shit out,” he says eventually, hating the way his voice cracks, “only to lose everything?”

“Tazer—”

Jonny tangles his fingers in Patrick’s hair, dips his head to rest alongside Patrick’s ear, voice low. “You pulled me from that prison bus, Peeks. You better wake the hell up and tell me why.”

“You called me Peeks,” Patrick croaks the next morning.

Jonny tightens the grip he’s got on Patrick’s hand. “You have a scar on your face.”

“Better catch up,” Patrick mumbles, eyes already half-way closed again.

“You better wake up,” Jonny warns.

Patrick’s lips curve into a smile, his grip on Jonny’s hand stronger than Jonny’s expecting. “You don’t have to ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> man i missed writing these aholes. i might revisit this verse later tbh.
> 
> do you ever have those weird song associations? i totally read the maze runner while listening to danza kuduro on repeat but now i have writing this fic as an association. useless facts about me!)
> 
> [original art in case you're interested](https://thisissirius.tumblr.com/post/41032875131/anon-requested-chicago-blackhawks-fast) \- A WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY, AMIRITE?


End file.
